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Nonequilibrium phase transition with gravitational-like interaction in a cloud of cold atoms
J Barré1, B Marcos2, D Wilkowski3
1Laboratoire J.-A. Dieudonné, Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, CNRS, 06109 Nice, France.
Abstract:
We propose to use a cloud of laser-cooled atoms in a quasi-two-dimensional trap to investigate a nonequilibrium collapse phase transition in the presence of a gravitational-like interaction. Using theoretical arguments and numerical simulations, we show that, like in two-dimensional gravity, a transition to a collapsed state occurs below a critical temperature. In addition and as a signature of the nonequilibrium nature of the system, persistent particle currents, dramatically increasing close to the phase transition, are observed.
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